Who We Are
Robert Encila
Theatre & Music Director, Artistic Director – rg@studioconnections.net
Robert Encila is a life-long student of the performing arts. He started singing at age five, played guitar in a rock band at sixteen, and left school at seventeen to tour his native Philippines as a dancer. He immigrated to the United States at age nineteen, subsequently receiving a full scholarship to study music and theatre at the University of Arizona.
Robert has been active in the local circuit, appearing in recent productions with Borderlands Theater and Arizona Theatre Company. He taught for fifteen years at the secondary and college levels and has directed close to seventy productions in twenty years. He is a member of the Actor’s Equity Association.
Robert’s national credits include musical performances in Las Vegas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and most recently at the historic Players’ Club and Birdland Jazz Club in New York City. His second album of original songs, Second Wind, is available on i-Tunes and www.cdbaby.com. Robert is the current theatre and choir director of St. Francis in the Foothills. He lives happily ever after with wife Ginny and boasts of three exceptional daughters: Alexandra, Catherine, and Maya.
Ginny Encila
Art Director, Co-Artistic Director – ge@studioconnections.net
Ginny Encila is a high-honors graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University with a BFA in Art Education. She is the former art specialist at Esperero Canyon Middle School and has thirty years of teaching experience, including seven years with the Summer Fine Arts Program. Ginny’s teaching has garnered numerous awards, including Southern Arizona Middle Level Teacher of the Year (1997), Virginia Elementary Art Teacher of the Year and Northern Virginia Regional Art Teacher of the Year (1994). In 2004, she received a joint award from the Arizona Administrator’s Association and the Arizona Alliance for Arts Education. Her work has been featured on National Teacher Television and on the Arlington Virginia Television, Fine Arts Series. Ginny is a six-time cooperating teacher for the University of Arizona and a former member of the Arizona State Department of Education Teacher Proficiency Assessment Committee.
